The present invention generally relates to medical valves and needleless connectors for intravenous (IV) applications, more particularly to IV connectors having one end configured for attaching to an IV tube and another end configured to receive a syringe for administering medicine to a patient.
Needleless IV connectors having valve mechanisms are known in the art, an example of which is the medical valve described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,866 assigned to ICU Medical, Inc. who also makes such needleless IV connectors under the trademark MicroClave®. One of the MicroClave® needleless IV connectors is available with an antimicrobial treatment, where the antimicrobial treatment consists of ionic silver. Such ionic silver, however, is subject to leaching over time.